


Honey I Shrunk the Presenters

by Tadpole4176



Series: The Very Un-Grand Tour [6]
Category: The Grand Tour (TV) RPF, Top Gear (UK) RPF
Genre: Action/Adventure, Fluff, Gen, Quarantine (sort of), lockdown ends
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-14
Updated: 2021-03-14
Packaged: 2021-03-22 11:08:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 11,531
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30037773
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tadpole4176/pseuds/Tadpole4176
Summary: Andy throws a party for The Grand Tour team as lockdown finally ends. In an attack of lunacy, he lets Richard take charge of the barbecue, assisted by Jeremy. Naturally, this doesn't end well - I think the title probably gives you an idea of how this is going to go.
Series: The Very Un-Grand Tour [6]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1890685
Comments: 2





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [SkyHighDisco](https://archiveofourown.org/users/SkyHighDisco/gifts).



> SkyHighDisco asked me a few weeks ago if my tiny shrunken presenters (who seem to have been on holiday recently) might fancy a "Honey I Shrunk the Kids" style adventure. It was a good plan (I have borrowed a fair amount from the film), and once I'd managed to get over the hurdle of actually finding the film to be able to watch it, it seemed to fall into place quite nicely as the end of their shrunken adventures. 
> 
> Admittedly, I've thought I reached the end before, but at the moment, it's the end.

The sun was shining, the air was warm – for England – it was a lovely day, but really it could have been pouring with rain and flashing with lightning, the mood would still have been the same.

Finally, finally, lockdown was lifted.

James considered himself lucky. He’d survived lockdown yes, so had lots of other people, but he enjoyed his own company and he hadn’t lost his job. It was inconvenient, but not a source of stress to be forced to stay at home. He’d been able to catch up with his projects. He’d rebuilt a number of childhood toys he’d rediscovered in his attic, he’d fixed a motorbike or two. There had been no end to the pottering he’d managed to fit in, things he’d thought he’d need to be retired to get to. Then there were books, again lots of opportunity to catch up on his reading.

And, of course, some interesting and unusual work where he got to actually drive toy cars – strangely – and muck about with his two mates as usual, despite the bizarre circumstances surrounding everyone else.

Yes, he was lucky. Though those shrunken adventures had genuinely been a bit more hairy than he might have liked.

And yet, today he felt a massive swell of relief that it was all over. It washed over him like a wave, a release of stress he hadn’t even been aware he was carrying. It was amazing.

Andy, ever the boss, had clearly seen everyone’s mood and thought it would be best served with a party. Well, a barbecue. James glanced at the sky nervously. Normally, having a barbecue in England was akin to doing a rain dance, but the sky remained blue. Still, after all those months of being told to only meet outside, it made sense to have a barbecue, safe and familiar.

James took another sip from his beer, almost draining it, and scoured the crowd for his two mates. He didn’t need to hang round with them all the time, obviously, but he wanted to check in with them. When they weren’t in strange lockdown circumstances or running away from gigantic insects. The other two were social creatures, no matter how annoying they might be socially, so too much time alone was a much bigger problem for them.

He didn’t need to look long, he should have known that it was his ears and not his eyes that were going to find them, causing a commotion in the middle of the garden, mucking about and making a mess. Though they were outside, so really there wasn’t much to break.

“Hamster!” he called, pulling the smaller man up off the ground after he’d apparently lost a wrestling match with the oaf over who knows what. The man would never learn.

“Hi James!” Richard grinned brightly, not at all embarrassed that he’d just been in a heap on the floor.

“Ah, you’re all here,” Andy walked up from behind James, grabbing James and Richard by the shoulders and nodding to Jeremy. “Would you like to see the shrink ray gun before I send it back?”

“Definitely,” nodded James, leaning forward eagerly.

“OK,” agreed Richard, shrugging.

“Just don’t point it at me,” added Jeremy, straightening to his full height.

“What, you don’t want to be just a tiny bit shorter?” asked Andy. “Less conspicuous.”

“Definitely not!” squeaked Richard, his eyes widening. “I don’t have any to spare.”

Laughing, Jeremy patted him on the head. “No thanks, mate,” he added, addressing Andy. “This is too much fun.” He stood directly behind Richard, resting his chin on the top of the smaller man’s head.

“Get off!” complained Richard, flapping his arms behind him in an effort to push Jeremy off.

Andy ignored them, heading into the house momentarily and reappearing with the shrink ray gun.

It wasn’t that much to look at. Vaguely gun shaped, clearly a bit heavy to carry round, with a long silver tube and a box full of electronics strapped to one side with a couple of small controls.

“What does that do?” asked Richard, reaching out to turn the small dial.

“Don’t touch!” protested James.

Andy laughed. “Don’t worry, it’s easy to control. On and off here, a dial to adjust for size – about here is suitable for driving matchbox and hot wheels cars, whereas this would be more like Action Man, and here would be even smaller than hot wheels – and then a trigger. The reversing process is all automatic.”

“So you can’t accidentally make us shorter anyway,” pointed out Jeremy.

“Not like that, no not really. It was fun watching you squirm though.” Andy laughed, placing the gun onto one of the various garden chairs strewn around. “Have a good look, Stig’s returning it later. I’m just off to show everyone some of the footage we got.” 

Richard winced. “Yeah, I’ll maybe stay out here, look after the food.”

James raised his eyebrows. “God help us.” He noted the alarm on Andy’s face. “I’ll keep an eye on it,” he added.

Andy laughed, waving his hand in dismissal. “It’s a long way from the house anyway.”

……………………………………………

“Jez,” called Richard, sounding nervous. “I think a bit of the fence has caught fire.”

“Ah.” The taller man, between hysterical giggles, hunted round for the fire extinguisher, certain that Andy would have one. “Every time!” he exclaimed. “Rubbish! I don’t know why anyone ever lets you do any cooking. Did you get ejected from home economics at school?”

Richard looked sheepish. “I did get assigned to practice tea and toast quite a lot,” he admitted.

“And baked beans, presumably,” laughed Jeremy, finally locating the fire extinguisher next to the little shed and pulling at various parts of it in an effort to make it go off. “James?” he called. “How do you set these things off? Have you got my glasses?”

Finally brute force and ignorance seemed to work for him, as James headed over to join them, something violently pinged off the fire extinguisher, flying past James and ricocheting somewhere behind him. Nonetheless, it was enough to make the fire extinguisher work, a jet of foamy stuff shot from the little cylinder, hitting the fence straight on.

Then, abruptly, something went wrong.

James was quite certain, one minute he’d been running over to help the oaf with the fire extinguisher, berating himself for getting too engrossed to keep an eye on the hamster whilst cooking, the next minute he was standing somewhere completely different with his two mates.

Teleportation?

No, nonsense.

A sinking feeling crept up James’s insides, quickly overwhelming his earlier sense of well-being.

“Jezza,” he said, as calmly as he could manage. “I think you’ve just shrunk us.”

“I did not!” protested Jeremy, waving the fire extinguisher around. “I came to the rescue, put out the flames. I was the perfect readily available fireman. The hero of the day, in fact. I prevented great injury to Hamster and stopped Andy’s house from burning down.”

James’s raised eyebrows stalled him. “And the piece that came flying off.”

“Details,” shrugged Jeremy. “Those things shouldn’t be so hard for the partially blind to get into.”

“Despite the fact that that piece was clearly enough to set off the shrink ray and miniaturise us?” asked James, his anger growing. “At its smallest setting, I might add.”

Richard, staying out of the altercation up until this point, chose that moment to step in. “Anyone want a burger? I think they’re cooked.”

James eyed the smaller man sceptically, uncertain he was willing to trust Richard with cooking anything that could potentially make him ill. Then, unaware of his frustration and anger, his stomach rumbled, and he came to the conclusion that it was easy enough to check that meat was cooked. And wasteful not to – there were burgers for the whole party on that tiny barbecue.

“We’re going to need our energy,” put in Jeremy. “That’s got to be like a 20 mile walk back to Andy’s house from here.” He sighed, holding his head in his hands. “I’m even smaller than a Lego man.”

Richard, deciding that he should intervene, sidled over, reached up to grab one of the hands, and inserted a burger into it. “At least you won’t be hungry,” he offered. “Unlike the rest of the crew, who are now far too big to eat these.”

……………………………………

With the crew and a smattering of other guests hanging round to have a laugh at the edited but as yet unreleased version of the boys’ latest adventure, Andy might have missed the knock at the door had it not shaken the entire house. He headed to answer it, confident that he knew who he would find on the other side of the door.

“Stig,” he greeted, holding out his hand to shake, though the driver simply stared at it in bafflement. “Come in.” Andy stepped back.

Stig walked into the house, a few steps beyond Andy, then turned and folded his arms, observing silently.

“Yes, I know, it was on loan,” grinned Andy. “Don’t worry, I was just showing it to the boys, I’ll fetch it now.” He headed off into the garden, expecting to have to prize James from the gun, but praying that neither of the others had taken a serious interest in it. There was a risk that James might have taken it apart, he did that sort of thing sometimes, but only when he was completely certain he could put it together again.

Naturally, the only time he was ever wrong about putting it back together again was when Jeremy or Richard was involved.

“James?” Andy called into the garden, but actually all three presenters were gone, probably headed in to watch the latest film’s highlights and laugh at one another. Thankfully, the gun lay undisturbed on the bench, so Andy simply grabbed it and headed back to the – ever impatient – Stig.

…………………………………

“This is actually edible,” exclaimed Jeremy around a mouthful of burger. The buns, that they should have been surrounded by, were still a hundred times larger and sat on a table in the garden. Not to mention onions and ketchup and so on, but food was food. Jeremy was hungry, and for once Richard apparently hadn’t poisoned him.

“Yeah, it’s a step up,” observed James. “He set fire to the fence but he made edible burgers.”

“Chaps, I think that’s how pretty much all our camping trips go,” pointed out Richard, also munching his way through a completely plain burger.

“Eat faster,” hissed James, interrupting before Richard could start elaborating on their camping trips.

“What?” asked Richard, clearly baffled.

“There’s something heading for us,” said James, pointing up into the air.

Immediately a shadow passed over them. Jeremy grabbed several of the remaining burgers, then gave the other two men a quick shove. “Run!”

“What is it?” Richard paused to look upwards.

“It’s a bug, move,” instructed James, catching the younger man’s elbow and propelling him forwards.

Shoving the last of his burger into his mouth, Richard obeyed.

They ran into the grass, which was a lot like entering a jungle, following Jeremy as he zigzagged between the blades of grass, then eventually crashing into him as he abruptly came to a halt.

“You could warn us!” protested Richard, squashed between the two larger men after James had crashed into him.

“It’s just a butterfly,” observed Jeremy.

“It’s a giant bloody monster, is what it is,” objected Richard, following Jeremy gaze as he stared at the flapping beast.

“It is sizeable just at the moment,” agreed James, raising his eyebrows as Richard practically hid himself behind Jeremy. “I’m fairly certain it doesn’t eat people though, not even really tiny people.”

“I’m still staying out of its way,” declared Richard, climbing onto a wonky blade of grass and sliding away from them, further into the undergrowth.

Jeremy turned to James, shrugging. “Do we leave him?” he asked, tempted.

“This isn’t quite normal operation,” pointed out James, “as tempting as it is.”

“Fine,” sighed Jeremy, stepping onto the blade of grass and following Richard down the slide.

Two minutes later, all three men found themselves hiding under a mushroom, peering out from under the cup to watch the gigantic butterfly swooping by.

“I’m quite glad they’re not normally that big,” swallowed Richard.

Jeremy snorted. “Very scary, Hamster.”

………………………………………………………………

The miniature specials were good, but Andy was pretty certain his audience was going to start getting hungry soon. With Stig out of the way, he headed back into garden to see how the boys were getting on with the barbecue, half afraid to look in case his garden was on fire or there was an ambulance rushing onto the grass. Instead, however, everything was quiet. The garden was still completely intact, and though the fence looked slightly blackened, it wasn’t currently on fire.

On the other hand, there was no sign of his barbecue.

Or any of the three presenters, who had been looking after it.

“I’m going to kill them,” muttered Andy, staring at the vacant space just in front of the scorch mark on the fence. “Where the hell are they?”

As the question passed through his lips, a perfect memory of collecting the shrink ray gun passed through his mind, imagining himself picking the gun up in absolute detail as he collected it for Stig, not even thinking twice about the absence of the three presenters.

“Oh,” said Andy. “To take the words out of James’s mouth. Oh cock.”

He turned on his heel and dashed back into the house, trying to formulate a plan as he went. They needed to catch Stig! But who was going to catch Stig? None of them could ever catch Stig!

He turned to his crew, the question poised on his lips. What were they going to do?

Then he caught sight of the one person in the room who might be of help.

Abbie. She could do it! Or at least, if she couldn’t she’d be a whole lot closer than any of the rest of them.

As the plan formed in his mind, Andy climbed on a chair and started issuing orders. They were going to need a whole lot of surveillance information if Abbie was going to stand any chance of catching the Stig.


	2. Chapter 2

“AAAhhh!” yelled James, stepping backwards and treading heavily on Richard’s foot, which led to a great deal of hopping about behind him.

“James!” Jeremy stepped round the hopping Richard and grabbed James’s arm, shifting him sideways out of the way, giggling as he did so. “It’s just a toy!”

“It’s a dinosaur!” protested James. “I’m well within my rights to be startled.”

Richard, who was now kneeling on the floor rubbing at his foot, began to giggle too. “Toy dinosaur,” he spluttered, “very obvious.”

“Well excuse me for not being an expert in toy dinosaurs, I prefer toys that do something!” Shoving his hands in his pockets crossly, he took a step forwards whilst still looking back at Jeremy and Richard, grimacing when his foot made a distinctly squelchy noise. “Crap! What now?” he exclaimed, turning his attention back to where he was going.

“James, there’s an entire river down here,” commented Richard, moving to James’s side as the older man removed his shoe from the flowing water.

“Driftwood, maybe an oil drum and some rope,” muttered Jeremy, joining them on the bank of the muddy river.

“Or a bridge,” nodded Richard, “we made it across the Kok after all.”

“Pillock,” put in James, rolling his eyes. “We don’t have time to hang around and build a bridge! We’ll have been eaten by the dinosaur before that, I don’t care that it’s a toy.”

“Maybe a boat would be a better plan,” conceded Richard.

“With what?” asked James. “I don’t think we’re going to find any oil drums or rope somehow.”

“Grass?” suggested Richard.

“Yes!” said Jeremy. “We could weave it together and make a raft.”

“You’re an expert weaver now?” asked James.

“How hard can it be?” grinned Jeremy.

“Don’t say that!” protested Richard as James winced.

“Or,” suggested James, “we could follow the bank of this little river as it seems to broadly head towards the house and we might not actually need to cross it.”

“Well, sure,” shrugged Richard. “If you’re going to be all sensible about it.” He stepped forwards to the edge of the river, and started to walk along it, weaving in and out of the blades of grass along the banks as he did so.

For several minutes, Jeremy and James fell into step behind him, trudging along the banks of the river dodging grass, small stones and other undergrowth. Then, possibly later than the others had expected, Jeremy began to moan.

“This is ridiculous, we can’t possibly walk that far,” complained Jeremy. “How far have we gone so far?”

James shrugged. “A metre.”

“I’m dying!” declared Jeremy. “I can’t possibly walk that far. Why don’t we call the dog and get it to give us a lift? It’ll be able to hear us, dogs have amazing hearing.”

“Andy’s dog?” said James sceptically. “It’s a lunatic.”

“It’s much faster,” insisted Jeremy. “I’m prepared to risk a minor mauling.”

“But Jez, even if it comes over, it’s just going to tread on us, we need to be higher up,” pointed out Richard, looking up at his friend nervously.

James, his hands firmly in his pockets, nodded towards a tall flower, spiky spines sticking out of it all the way up. “You could climb up there, if you want to be higher,” he suggested. “But there’s no way on earth you’re getting me up there, I’ll just be hiding under this mushroom.”

“Right,” said Jeremy, enthusiastically taking James’s advice and immediately launching himself up the stalk, easily gripping the spines as he climbed.

Richard hung back, looking at Jeremy as he headed up the flower, and then back at James. “You can’t just stay here though,” he finally said.

James sighed. “I am not climbing that.” He sighed. “I’ll tell you what, if you and Jezza manage to ride the dog back and get Andy – because no matter what you do you’ve got to get Andy – then you can come back and find me. If you set off successfully then I’ll head back to the barbecue.”

The younger man was still uncertain. “But you’ll be on your own,” he protested. “Shouldn’t we stick together?”

“At this point sticking together involves climbing a massive flower after a shaved ape, I’d rather not thanks,” retorted James. But at the crestfallen look on Richard’s face, he added. “It’s fine, Hamster, I like my own company, and I don’t mind waiting, especially if I don’t have to put up with you two complaining about it. You go up after him.”

“OK,” agreed Richard, stretching and just reaching the first of the spines above him.

“I don’t fancy your chances of actually getting onto the dog in the first place,” he added.

“Cheers!” grumbled Richard, standing on tiptoes and grabbing onto the next spine, slowly making his way up after the long disappeared Jeremy.

“Hamster!” Jeremy’s voice sounded from above Richard, urging him upwards. “I’ve fallen into the flower!”

“Pillock!” yelled back Richard, still struggling to climb between the spines. “Aren’t you allergic to flowers? Are you going to sneeze me off this if I get to the top?”

“I think it’s OK, but I could do with a hand getting out,” called back Jeremy. “I must be too small to be affected by the pollen.”

“Did you hear that, James?” called Richard. “The ape admitted to being too small for something.”

“Are you coming up here to help, Hamster?” called back Jeremy.

“It’s hard going,” gasped Richard, “I’m working on it.”

“He’s too small, Jez,” added James.

“Hey!” protested Richard, despite the truth of the statement. “I’m not admitting to that.”

“Fine, I’ll wait for the midget,” grumbled Jeremy, “surrounded by giant pollen that at any moment could decide to attack me.”

Panting, Richard finally reached the top of the flower, nosing his way past the petals far enough to see Jeremy without falling in. He was fairly confident that James wasn’t going to come rescue them no matter how stuck they were. “Jez?”

“There you are!” exclaimed Jeremy, sticking his head out of a sea of fluffy yellow lumps not unlike giant wotsits. “Can you reach my foot without falling in? This stuff is sticky!”

“Umm.” Richard glanced behind him, reaching out and wrapping his left arm round the nearest spine before reaching his right hand over to grab at Jeremy’s foot. “Can you stretch a bit more?”

“Hamster,” complained Jeremy. “I’m stuck!”

Glancing back, Richard wrapped his feet round the spine instead, leaning his whole body forward into the flower and getting a good grip on Jeremy’s foot. “Ready?” he asked.

“Get on with it, before I start sneezing giant bogeys!”

Rolling his eyes, Richard started to pull, initially having very little impact, but finally shifting his tall mate just far enough to loosen the flower’s grip on him and allow him to move himself.

“I’m free!” yelled Jeremy, starting to gingerly make his way towards Richard.

“Thank God,” sighed Richard, collapsing against the petal he was leaning on.

“We might have to rename you Mighty Mouse!” exclaimed Jeremy, reaching out to give Richard a high five, his attention falling from Richard before the younger man ever hit his palm and instead staring a few centimetres above him.

“What?” asked Richard, seeing Jeremy’s gaze shifting, just as something grabbed him and he was carried into the air. “Jez!” he squeaked in panic. “Jez, James! It’s a giant bee!! It’s got me!”

Jeremy had no idea what to do, the bee had Richard and there was no way he could reach the younger man now without getting stuck back in the flower, so instead he did the only thing he could think of, he took a running leap and launched himself at the bee, landing firmly on its back. “James! We’re on a bee,” he yelled down to their friend, unsure what on earth he could possibly do about it.

“Well done!” came back James’s response. “I thought you were trying to beckon the dog?”

Ha ha, thought Jeremy, reaching round the bee to try to get hold of Richard as the bee was distracted by the flower. “Come on, Hamster,” he grunted, “help me out here.”

“An insect’s got me, Jez!” wailed Richard, heading for a full on panic.

“Yes, but if you’d just reach up a bit, I’d have you instead,” complained Jeremy.

“Hamster, hold up your hand!” ordered James from below, leaving no room for argument.

Apparently without even thinking about it, Richard held his hand up, allowing Jeremy to finally get a grip on him and haul him onto the bee’s back, in front of Jeremy and between the bee’s two body segments. Almost immediately, the bee finished with the flower and bumbled off into the air, far above the ground.

“I don’t think James would like this,” gasped Richard, hanging on to some of the bee’s furry body as his heart tried to beat out of his chest.

“He likes flying,” pointed out Jeremy.

“That’s weird,” said Richard. “How does he like flying without liking heights?”

“I’m rapidly going off flying,” added Jeremy, pushing Richard’s head down as a fly swat whispered past the top of the bee, barely missing them.

“What was that?” asked Richard.

“One of the crew, I think,” replied Jeremy. “New guy. I guess he’s not a fan of bees.”

Below them, James slowly continued the walk along the back of the mud river, away from the barbecue, mumbling under his breath about the two imbeciles he had to work with and telling off all the little pebbles and lumps of mud he kept nearly tripping over.

“Stupid rock, pebble, whatever you are,” he complained. “Why are you making this so awkward, when it’s already plenty awkward enough. And how on earth am I going to find those two numpties again now they’ve been kidnapped by a bee, because I’m definitely not climbing into a bee hive to rescue them, I wasn’t even prepared to climb a flower! Don’t you think you could manage to cook some burgers without causing a major catastrophe? No, not you two, because everywhere you go you have to be as incompetent as possible, like the world will end if you actually do something properly for once… What was that?”

James turned round, looking back at the fence at the end of the garden.

The base of it was on fire.

Again!

“Perfect,” he grumbled, picking his pace up as he continued walking.

………………………………………

“Has anyone spotted him? We’ve got the car, it’s an Audi S5, 2017, reg LS17FUE, in blue, we’ve got it turning right out of here, so towards Three Cocks heading South, maybe towards Bristol or Cardiff.” Andy looked round his crew, most of them camera operators and sound crew rather than surveillance specialists, but suddenly sitting in front of screens filled with images from remote cameras that Andy had already wrangled access to.

They were really a great crew. He smiled to himself, dialling the number for Abbie.

“Abbie? Head south, I’ll call you back as soon as I can.”

He hung up, aware that she’d want to concentrate on driving rather than small talk, and started to wander between his crew, peering at the security cameras he’d already managed to get access to, particularly motorway service stations, and information from various number plate recognition systems. They’d catch him again soon enough, Stig couldn’t teleport.

……………………………………

The new crewman, slightly intimidated by the sheer professionalism of the team he’d joined, not to mention daunted by the prospect of suddenly joining a rescue mission, took a few more minutes’ breather in the back garden before heading back in and trying to make himself actually useful. I can do this, he thought to himself. I have not been outwitted by that bee, and I’ll be fine with this too.

He looked up.

“There’s a fire!” he exclaimed aloud, looking round and realising that taking care of it was really his job. He couldn’t just go running back in and distracting the others. Then, feeling very pleased with himself, he spotted the sprinkler system.

“Perfect,” he grinned, reaching to turn the tap.

…………………………………

The sprinkler wasn’t good news for Jeremy, James and Richard. On the back of the bee, Jeremy and Richard clung on even harder, more than one raindrop nearly dislodging them as – thankfully – the bee came down for another landing. As it drew close to a cluster of bluebells growing at the edge of Andy’s garden, the sprinkler scored a direct hit, and Jeremy and Richard finally fell.

After a moment or two in freefall, the two men, clinging to each other in panic, bounced off the cup of one of the bluebells, falling to either side of it and finally able to grab on enough between them that they could slow their descent.

“Is the bee gone?” asked Richard, looking round frantically for the insect, despite dangling primarily from Jeremy’s hands on the cup of a bluebell.

“It’s busy, we need to work out how to get down!” snapped Jeremy, feeling particularly vulnerable held in place only by Richard’s counterweight. Surely that wouldn’t even work? Releasing one of Richard’s hands cautiously, he took a firmer grip on the flower. “Come on Hamster, we’re going to have to climb down this.”

“Jez?” said Richard, moving his second hand to take a grip on the bluebell. “There aren’t any spines on bluebells.”

“No,” agreed Jeremy.

“How are we going to…”

Abruptly, Richard was gone. For several shocked moments, Jeremy remained clinging to the flower, shuffling upward enough to peer over and gaze at the empty space where his small friend had been hanging, then – finally – he looked down, afraid that he was going to see a body.

……………………………

James’s hands sank further into his pockets and his shoulders hunched around his ears as the sprinkler began to pelt the garden with rainwater, mostly protected from direct hits by the blades of grass he was walking beneath. A glance behind him confirmed that the fire was already dwindling, and certainly no longer a threat to him, so he continued in his path along the ever growing stream, heading for the edges of the garden. He was still wandering along, grumbling under his breath at the incompetence of his co-presenters when he heard a loud splash.

In hindsight, James couldn’t have explained what led to him running along the path, he certainly wasn’t a fan of running of any kind, but there was something about that splash. A sound that screamed, this isn’t a garden noise, this is one of your mates.

And, of course, he’s in trouble.

Moments later, the river James had been following had broadened and deepened, forming a gushing torrent of water that was almost to the edge of the garden. Whereas before they’d jokingly considered building a boat to cross it, now the water seemed completely impenetrable.

“James!” a voice called from above him, barely audible over the water and the rain.

“Jez?”

“Can you see Hamster?” asked Jeremy, beginning to make his way down from his precarious perch.

James stared at the water. Hamster, in that? He wasn’t even a good swimmer. He looked round for something he might be able to use to test the water, certain that if he stepped into the centre he’d be in just as much trouble as Richard, just in time to catch Jeremy sliding dramatically down the stem of the bluebell with a look of sheer panic on his face.

“Arrrrrrgghh,” yelled Jeremy, because quietly wasn’t really in his repertoire.

“Are you sure he’s in here?” called back James, staring at his mate from the other bank of the river.

“No! But he fell,” said Jeremy, “and I can’t see him.”

That wasn’t a good sign, James acknowledged, finally finding a stick small enough to wield and prodding at the water, searching for their hamster. Even the end of the stick was massively affected by the speed of the water, desperate to be torn out of James’s hand.

James held on even tighter, grimly determined that the water wouldn’t beat him. They would find their friend.

Jeremy, still wobbly from his rapid descent, crawled into the edges of the water, searching the water with his hands.

“James, I can feel him,” the older man called, reassuringly quickly. “He’s really near this side.”

As Jeremy dug into the river with his bare hands, finally pulling an unconscious Richard from the water and carrying him onto dry land, James could only watch, barred from access by the same rushing water. He watched Jeremy lay their friend out with a care that didn’t fit with his public image, checking the smaller man had nothing in his mouth and taking his pulse, before starting mouth to mouth.

Silently, stuck on his own on the wrong side of the river where no one could see him, James began to cry.

Finally, finally, there was a spluttering noise and Richard puked up a lot of water, mainly over Jeremy. The older man didn’t care though, he sat down on his heels and wrapped his arms round the still unconscious Richard, shuffling round with him to get a look at James.

“James?” said Jeremy, as gently as he could over the noise of the water. “James? He’s OK. James!”

Eventually, James looked up, his eyes taking in Jeremy holding Richard, and then the smile on the man’s face as he looked across at James.

“He’s fine,” repeated Jeremy.

James swallowed, trying to get himself under control, breathing deeply and heavily. His relief was entirely tangible, he could feel it sweeping through his entire body. For several long minutes, he and Jeremy simply stared at each other, not ready to speak further. Then James croaked out. “I need to get over to you,” embarrassed at how broken his voice sounded, he hadn’t been injured after all, he’d just had a slightly unusual walk by the river.

“Nothing wrong,” he told himself, clearing his throat again.

On the other side of the river, Jeremy was removing his jacket, carefully lying Richard in the recovery position and covering him with the jacket, brushing his hair away from his face before moving away to stand beside the river, once more facing James.

“Right,” said Jeremy, looking around. The river hadn’t slowed at all, there was no sign of that abating, and the rain was still coming, so it wasn’t likely to happen anytime soon. “Stick?”

James looked dubiously at the stick on offer, barely reaching the shallows on his side and only supported by Jeremy whilst he stood in the shallower water on the other side.

“I can’t build an entire bridge,” observed Jeremy.

“I have a better plan,” said James. “Why don’t you climb up a blade of grass far enough to bend it over?”

“Because I’m not actually 6 and a half feet tall at the moment, and the grass is refusing to bend to my will,” replied Jeremy. “I could maybe dunk you in honey and get a bee to fly you over?”

“Ha ha,” grumbled James. “I guess it’s the stick then,” he sighed, wading into the water and watching Jeremy do the same on the other side, shuffling his feet around in the mud so that he was more firmly anchored.

“I’m ready,” said Jeremy, holding the stick across to James.

James carefully removed his jacket, rolling it into a very precise, tight ball and throwing it to the other side. He then reached down to repeat the process with his shirt, but Jeremy yelled. “Will you get on with it, Slow? My feet are freezing.” Obediently, James stepped into the water, shivering in sympathy with Jeremy.

A couple of shallow steps in and he was able to reach the stick, a tangible contact with his friend at last. He placed both hands firmly round the stick, looking over to check that Jeremy had a good hold before stepping into the torrent of water.

Jeremy pulled strongly, unwilling to risk messing up with James in the river, the sweat pouring down his face more from nerves than exertion. He wasn’t normally prone to worrying particularly, but one glance at Richard’s prone form was enough to assure him that he didn’t want to take this river lightly – no matter how small it was in reality.

Finally, James was close enough to grasp Jeremy’s hand, and the larger man pulled him in, soaking wet but so relieved. “Thanks, Jez,” whispered James, squelching out of the river immediately and heading over to inspect Richard, leaning over to listen for his breathing.

Jeremy followed, grabbing James’s dry jacket and handing it to him as they both sat beside Richard.

Waiting.


	3. Chapter 3

Cigarette break, decided Andy, taking in the sight of his people all working the problem before him. These guys were all so professional, sometimes it was best to let them work without breathing down their necks. Plus he needed to calm down a little himself, think more clearly. He needed to be on top of his game if they were going to catch up with Stig and find his boys.

He stepped out of the house through the patio doors, leaving the frantic noise of his crew and taking in the quiet of what was supposed to be a barbecue. A party! The first one in a year or more! But it was the garden that was empty and it wasn’t even raining.

Wait. Rain. Why was the sprinkler on?

Andy’s eyes widened as he remembered how devastating the hosepipe trick had been during the boys’ adventure in Italy. The sprinkler could really cause them problems, and not ones that he had a handy rescue party ready to resolve if necessary. Rushing to the tap, he turned the water off and heaved a sigh of relief. All safe again, he just needed to find them.

And make clear that sprinklers were a bad idea. Dropping his half-finished cigarette, Andy headed back inside.

…………………………………..

Slowly, Richard came round, muttering about bees and butterflies, then abruptly sitting up, to the point where he nearly fell flat on his back again because he made himself dizzy.

“Take it easy a minute, you wally,” said James. “You just nearly drowned yourself in the river.”

“There’s a river in Andy’s garden?” asked Richard, frowning.

“There is when you’re only millimetres high,” pointed out James. “Jez had to pull you out and you gave us both a heart attack.”

“Hospital job all round then,” groaned Richard, moving to get to his feet. “I guess we can’t stay here though. Since there isn’t actually a hospital, or in fact a roof.”

“No,” agreed Jeremy, getting to his feet and hauling Richard after him, reluctant to let go afterwards, which earned him a slightly quizzical look, but nothing more.

James patted Jeremy on the shoulder then, leaving him to keep an eye on Richard, headed off into the undergrowth.

…………………………………

They’d probably only been walking for ten minutes or so before the next time James stopped. In ordinary circumstances Jeremy would most certainly have started moaning by now, but instead he was stumbling through the jungle-like garden with a tired and shaky Hamster tucked under his arm, too pre-occupied by worry to even think about bothering to complain.

“You OK?” asked James, turning back to the two of them, but addressing Jeremy more than Richard. Given the state of Richard, Jeremy could only assume that it was a sign that there was no point in even asking Richard.

“Fabulous,” muttered Jeremy, clinging to his last shred of calm as he tried not to take his worry and frustration out on James.

“Oh good, you won’t need any of this giant cookie then,” grinned James. “More for me.”

“Wow,” gasped Richard, too quietly for Jeremy’s comfort.

“It’s a feast!” exclaimed Jeremy, shuffling Richard over to the cookie and pushing him to sit on top of it before reaching down and scooping out some of the centre and handing it over. “Here, it’ll help,” he told Richard, leaving no room for argument, then bending down again and taking his own handful.

“Will it really?” whispered James, already munching on his own gooey cookie centre.

“How should I know?” retorted Jeremy. “He’s tired, cookie has lots of energy, it might help.”

“For all we know he’s still full of water, lungs, stomach and all,” pointed out James, with an unnecessary level of pessimism.

“Well it’s not going to make any of that worse!”

Behind them, Richard threw up violently into the undergrowth.

James snorted. “Better out than in!”

“That didn’t go well,” groaned Richard, glaring at James.

“Well there’s some water that’s no longer inside him,” offered Jeremy brightly, offering Richard a piece of the biscuit instead. “Maybe this’ll be easier to stomach.”

Richard did seem a bit brighter afterwards though. As the three of them sat perched on the edge of the cookie, munching away, this time without any reappearances, he slowly seemed more and more awake, supporting himself as he sat up, and increasingly chatting away about nonsense.

Normal Richard Hammond.

Reassured, Jeremy relaxed, letting his mind wander as he chewed on cookie and took in their incredible surroundings.

In this patch of the garden the grass seemed a bit sparser, the excess water swallowed by a nearby small tree and the overhead rain slowed by larger leaves from a bush. It was calm, the opposite of the river they’d had to deal with earlier, and Jeremy was tempted to just stay where he was, wait with a pleasant food supply until someone found them. No more walking, dodging fast moving water or rain or insects.

Then Richard jumped beside him. “Jez,” he whispered. “There’s an ant.”

“Hamster,” replied Jeremy, too relaxed to take him seriously. “It’s an ant.”

“It’s as big as me!” protested Richard. “And I really don’t like insects much.”

“We’re aware,” put in James, his eyebrows raising as he turned to follow Richard’s gaze. “It’s a lot bigger than ants normally are, like you say,” he began.

“Is that supposed to help?” asked Richard.

“Well, no, I’m just thinking maybe it’s more like a dog at this size?” suggested James. “It’s not like it can crawl up your leg in the night now.”

“It can!” said Richard, looking even more alarmed.

“Giant puppy,” nodded Jeremy seriously, sticking his tongue out and panting dramatically.

“I think you’re confusing it with Hamster,” laughed James.

“I am not..” began Richard, pausing as James and Jeremy both raised their eyebrows dramatically, then flinching as the ant stepped closer.

“Here, Hamster,” said Jeremy, standing up next to him on the cookie and slinging an arm round his shoulders as reassurance. “It’s just a puppy, just keep repeating ‘it’s just a puppy’.” He held Richard tightly as the ant wandered closer again, holding his hand out to touch the creature.

Richard, whose eyes were now screwed tightly shut, muttered, “It’s just a puppy,” under his breath several times in an increasingly high pitch until the ant, now pretty much face to face with him, ran its mouth all the way down him.

For a horrible moment Jeremy thought he’d managed to get Richard bitten, but then Richard relaxed under his arm, his ‘it’s just a puppy’ becoming stronger and more certain even as his nose wrinkled up. “It licked me!” he added.

“New pet!” exclaimed James, as he and Jeremy fell about laughing. “Imagine explaining that when you get home!” 

……………………………………………

Despite their success, once they were full James was keen to urge them away from the cookie and their new pet ant. He didn’t want to mention it to Richard, but he was confident that a lone ant wouldn’t keep a find like this to itself, and somehow he didn’t think that an entire giant litter-herd of pretend puppies licking Richard would do anything for his newfound confidence with this one ant. They really needed to get going.

“Come on,” said James. “Places to be, people to find.”

Jeremy and Richard grumbled amicably about leaving, Jeremy grabbing another chunk of the cookie and Richard turning round to pat the ant on its nose in a gesture of farewell that made James smile, but they did move, slowly, back to the path.

This time, Richard, now revived by food, took the lead, bouncing his way down the path with a renewed enthusiasm for their trip, playing with the blades of grass as he passed them as if he was a ball in a pinball machine, bouncing off the grass erratically along the way. More than once he nearly tripped James up, and one time Jeremy actually crashed into the back of him, but they let it slide, there would be plenty of time for mocking later.

Of course, warning Richard that they were following him and therefore prone to falling over him, might have aided in preventing them from all ending up in a pile of bodies on top of him when he abruptly stopped dead half an hour later and neither James nor Jeremy saw it coming.

“Hamster!” groaned James as Jeremy tripped and landed on him, presumably crushing Richard completely.

Richard made a vague grunting noise and tried unsuccessfully to wriggle free.

“Get off, Jezza,” instructed James, pushing his hands against the ground in an effort to encourage the oaf to move, not to mention release the hamster from below.

Thankfully, Jeremy gained his feet quickly, reaching down to haul first James up and then Richard, who was now both slightly damp from the river and entirely plastered in mud.

“What did you stop for?” asked Jeremy.

“Cigarette,” said Richard, pointing to a gigantic, still smouldering cigarette on the ground.

“That’s mine!” exclaimed Jeremy. “Andy’s been stealing them again!”

James snorted. “He’s saving you from yourself, you oaf! Could be handy though, we could use it as a light, it’s starting to get a bit dim.”

“Oh yeah,” said Richard, suddenly paying much more attention to his surroundings. “We’re never going to make it back to the house tonight.”

……………………………

Abbie shifted up another gear and moved into the outside lane, overtaking another car at close to 90mph. She was taking a risk, she knew, she could easily get stopped, but then if she didn’t she’d never catch up with Stig.

She’d have to risk it.

From what Andy had been able to tell her, Stig was headed towards Southampton at some speed, he’d already set off several speed cameras. So, assuming he wasn’t completely unaware of the need to keep speed within the limits on the motorway, Stig was in a hurry.

Abbie gripped the steering wheel tightly and pressed the accelerator down even harder, watching as the needle climbed higher on the dashboard keeping her eyes peeled for police, though Andy had assured her he hadn’t been able to spot any coming, and it was 20 miles to the next working speed camera.

“Come on,” she whispered to the car.

…………………………………………

“It’s going to have to be this,” said Jeremy, putting the massive cigarette down on the hard ground and peering at an upturned toy brick.

“It’s not exactly the lego hotel, is it,” said James.

Richard peered up at it. “Right then, give me a boost up?” he asked, lifting his arms and resting them against the side of the brick.

“Manual labour,” complained Jeremy, coming over to give Richard a push up anyway.

“Ooo, it’s surprisingly roomy, actually,” came back Richard’s voice as he scrabbled into the hole.

“It’s going to need to be,” said James. “We’re all going to have to use the same knobble.”

“Really?” asked Jeremy. “Why? There are 4!”

James nudged him behind the brick, pointing out the massive damage to the rear of the brick at the top. “I don’t think those are usable.”

“That still leaves a second one,” persisted Jeremy.

“It does,” agreed James.

“You two could share.”

James shuffled the taller man back round to the front of the brick, positioning him for a good look into the front of the brick, specifically the second knobble. “Do feel free,” grinned James.

The hole was completely jam packed full of wet, slimy mud, it might as well have been carefully packed with cement.

“Oh, right,” sighed Jeremy. “Maybe I can turf the hamster out. He’s younger he can sleep on the floor.”

“I don’t think that’ll make much difference,” laughed James, hauling himself up and crawling into the hole with Richard.

“Ooof, that’s my arm you’re sitting on,” grumbled Richard, rolling away just in time for Jeremy to crawl inside and nearly flatten him. He squeaked dramatically. “Jez! There isn’t room for you there!”

“There’s going to have to be,” replied Jeremy. “There’s nowhere else I can go, I can’t stick to the wall.”

“But…”

James, carefully remaining lying down as he spoke, just in case someone had ideas about his space, eyed them dubiously. “You’re right, there isn’t space for both of you to lie there without suffocating Hamster, you’re going to have to let him lie on top of you.”

“What?” Two voices responded as one, James wasn’t sure who sounded the most alarmed.

“Well what else are you going to do? Crush him after going to all that effort to fish him out of the river earlier?” James told Jeremy off.

“Thanks for that,” added Richard, looking embarrassed.

“I could do,” protested Jeremy.

James continued staring at him, waiting.

“But, of course, I won’t,” he added, hastily. “Fine,” he sighed. “Hamster can go on top, but I’m not just a mattress, so he can,” he moved his attention to Richard himself. “You can lean on me because you’ll slide off the side otherwise, but I’m not just a mattress. And be careful where you put your bony elbows.”

“I still don’t get why I have to give up my space for him,” grumbled Richard. “I was there first.”

“Because you don’t want to be crushed,” pointed out James. “Stop whining.”

“It’s OK for you, you get space to yourself,” he pouted.

“Millimetres, sorry, micrometres away, you won’t even notice the difference,” countered James, still carefully not budging.

“Here,” said Jeremy, physically shifting Richard to James’s side so that he could lie down, shuffling around for a few minutes in an attempt to get comfortable, then watching as Richard climbed over both of them to find his own position. “It’s fine, Hamster, you’re not squashing me,” he offered quietly, as Richard seemed almost reluctant to move, trapped against the nearly vertical curved side.

“Night chaps,” said James, rolling away from them a little and onto his side in an effort to get comfortable.

Jeremy and Richard lay, slightly uncomfortably, for several long minutes without talking, but then the exertion of the day and the peacefulness of the night crept in on them, and soon they too fell asleep.

……………………………………………

Stig was here, somewhere.

Abbie slid out of the car hurriedly, determined not to lose her chance. Andy and the crew had done their job, now it was her turn. She looked around the service station, wondering if she would catch a glimpse of the other racing driver just casually strolling round. Would he be carrying the gun? Should she simply be looking for his car?

No, she knew where to look. They all knew what Stig liked to do in service stations. Pulling the visor down on her helmet, and acknowledging that Stig would approve (of the visor, at least), Abbie slipped into the gents toilets.

Stig was obvious, unsurprisingly, as she entered. Careful not to attract his attention, and grateful that it was late and now relatively quiet in the services, Abbie crept behind the Stig and reached into his pocket, retrieving his keys.

Then, before Stig could do anything, she exited the toilets again.

It was several minutes before Stig emerged, immediately crossing the hallway to stare her down, his arms crossed and his body language angry. Abbie raised the visor on her helmet, partly just to annoy him.

“You need to go back,” she said.

Stig shook his head, just once, with finality.

“The boys are in trouble.”

Again, Stig shook his head.

“Fine. You need to wait here then.” Abbie folded her arms, leaving her determination clear to see.

Stig lent his head to the side, then carefully stepping round her went and sat down in the seating area, his arms still crossed.

Abbie sighed, then sat down beside him, ignoring the looks from various passers-by, and got out her phone to call Andy.


	4. Chapter 4

Jeremy groaned, lifting his arm awkwardly from under both James and Richard – as far as he could tell – in order to rub his eyes. James, to his right, was still storing loudly – loud enough that there was no way he was getting back to sleep – and Richard seemed to be randomly sprawled across both of them, presumably from rolling down from the side of their little hole in the night. For the moment, aside from the annoying noise and the fact that his right arm – which James had been lying on – was half asleep, it wasn’t an uncomfortable position, in fact the hamster-shaped blanket was probably helping to keep him warm, but it felt a lot like sitting waiting for someone to give him a telling off. Any minute now, one or the other of his mates was going to wake up, decide they hated the sleeping arrangements, probably elbow him somewhere inappropriate and do some shouting. Really, what he should do was move out of the way first. If he could escape outside before that happened…

Except he couldn’t really be bothered. He was comfortable, pleasantly warm, and whilst he wasn’t actually going to nod off, he had that floaty feeling that was good for thinking things through.

If he could admit it to himself, it was reassuring having his two mates nearby too. There had been too many close calls recently.

A sudden, full body, flinch from the hamster alerted Jeremy that his little friend was about to wake up. He tensed his muscles, certain that he was going to get an elbow somewhere uncomfortable. There was no way the hamster would stay still.

“MMMmhhggghhh?” said Richard.

“Morning, Hamster,” replied Jeremy, still waiting for him to move.

“Where?” Richard rolled over, more or less falling into the newly created gap between Jeremy and James. “Oh, hi!” He blinked sleepily at Jeremy, rubbing at his own face, thankfully without his elbows making contact with anything delicate.

Jeremy grinned back, trying not to actually laugh at Richard in the process of waking up. “I guess we should get going,” he said. “I think all my muscles have stiffened up though.”

“Old man,” retorted Richard, predictably, obligingly sliding down beyond James and Jeremy’s feet and out of their hole.

“James?” said Jeremy, more loudly. “Time to get up.”

“Cock,” replied James, surprisingly coherent. “You make a terrible alarm clock.”

“What?” protested Jeremy. “I didn’t even tip anything on you?”

“Thank heavens for small mercies,” commented James, turning slightly to sit up. “Where’s Hamster?”

“Jumped down already.”

James nodded thoughtfully. “I didn’t hear a scream.”

Jeremy shrugged. “Miracles do happen.”

…………………………………………………

As James faffed about getting ready for the day, Richard had no idea what he could possibly be doing, Jeremy decided to climb to the top of the brick to get a view over the grass. Richard, who quite enjoyed scrambling up things, was slightly disappointed when Jeremy refused to help him up the first jump and instead left him kicking his heels while James did James things.

“Jez? Are you there yet? Can you see anything?”

“No, I’m only a cm higher than the last time you asked,” responded Jeremy.

“Hurry up then,” called back Richard, kicking at the dirt below him.

Jeremy ignored him, continuing to climb.

Finally, James emerged from the brick, sliding onto the ground and turning in puzzlement to Richard. “Where’s the orang-utan?”

Richard pointed upwards, causing James to tut and roll his eyes.

“I can see the light!” yelled down Jeremy.

“You can see above the grass?” asked Richard.

“Yes I can.”

“And?” asked James.

“Andy’s put the lego hotel on the patio, maybe he’s thinking we’re not sure where to go? He’s stood next to it with something in his hands…. Oh! It’s that drone with the camera on it, he’s using it to search.”

“Get down here, Jez!” called James, urgently.

“I only just got to the top!” protested Jeremy.

“That drone’s like a helicopter,” said James.

“Right,” said Jeremy.

“So in a moment it’s going to get very windy!”

“I’ll come down,” agreed Jeremy, making short work of the knobbly brick as he climbed back down to his friends.

“The safest place would be in the brick again,” said James, earning himself a glare from Jeremy. “But if we go back in there, Andy will never see us, we’re going to have to try staying outside. Everyone get a good grip on one of the blades of grass!” He added, as the drone started to get closer.

Looking nervously at James, Richard and Jeremy each obediently went and grabbed a blade of grass, Richard wrapping his arms all the way round it.

“Hang on!” yelled James.

The wind from the drone blew the grass around violently, probably too much for Andy to have a hope of spotting them.

“James!” yelled Richard. “I don’t think Andy’s going to spot us in this!”

“No!” agreed James. “I think I may have miscalculated a bit.”

“James!” squeaked Richard, sliding rapidly up his blade of grass into the wind.

“Hamster!” As Richard was sucked up the blade of grass, both Jeremy and James dived for him, each of them managing to get a grip on a foot as the smaller man nearly took off sideways. The three of them hung in the air for several minutes, the two older men desperately clinging to the undergrowth and Richard’s shoes, praying his feet didn’t slip out of them, until the drone finally moved away into another part of the garden.

As the drone flew away the three of them sank to the ground, out of breath.

“Thanks, guys,” panted Richard, struggling back to his feet. “So this way then?” he asked.

“Yep, Andy’s left the lego hotel out for us – just in case we weren’t sure where to go,” said Jeremy.

“How far?” asked James.

Jeremy shrugged. “We’re maybe halfway.”

James and Richard shared a look, the events of the past day flashing through both of their minds as they imagined attempting to travel the same distance again.

“Maybe we need another way,” suggested Richard. “Something a bit quicker.”

“No problem,” responded Jeremy. “I’ve got a suitable car in my pocket.”

“Not like that,” said Richard, rolling his eyes. “There must be something. Could we make a grass rope and swing across the fences?”

James gave him a very sceptical look. “I don’t think so.” He then turned back to their path through the grass, determinedly refusing to be stopped.

Jeremy grinned, catching Richard’s eye. “Create a car out of mud?”

“No,” said James.

“Climb up a tree and fly down on one of those helicopter seeds,” suggested Richard.

“And how exactly are you going to get far enough up the tree? Or steer the thing so that you don’t end up back where you started?”

“Find another bee?” suggested Jeremy.

“Definitely not,” said James.

“Get the ant to give us a lift?” asked Richard.

“And you’ll not be worried about all his mates at all?” James continued through the jungle of undergrowth, unimpressed by their suggestions.

“Ooooo,” said Richard. “We could drive a remote control car here and get it to pick us up.”

“With what controller?” asked James, exasperated.

“This one,” laughed Richard, climbing onto the abandoned controller and bracing his feet against a small ridge in order to pull at the on switch.

“Really?” said Jeremy, surprised.

“Well it looks like a controller,” replied Richard.

“You need to climb so that you can see if anything’s moving,” suggested James. “Just climb up the fence panel.” As Richard walked over to the fence, James turned to Jeremy. “We need to use the controller. I’ll control the left, you take the right?”

Jeremy grinned, stepping onto the controller and getting into position.

“Hamster?” called James. “Anything moving.”

Richard peered out into the garden, initially not seeing anything. Then, across the patio, he could see a dark shape driving towards them. “Yes! It’s coming towards us, keep going that way!”

James and Jeremy both leant forwards, keeping the vehicle moving.

“James?” said Richard. “I don’t think it’s a car.”

“What do you mean? It’s a tank or a lorry or something?”

“It looks like that spider me and Jez played on,” replied Richard.

“Oh,” said James.

“Really?” swallowed Jeremy.

“I hope it wasn’t Andy’s bag you threw up in then,” added James.

“I hope it’s fixed,” said Richard, remembering a lot of spinning.

…………………………………………….

“Piece of cake,” grinned Jeremy, stepping off the remote control with James and stopping the spider alongside the lego hotel.

“That went remarkably well,” agreed Richard. “I wasn’t expecting that.”

“No, it’s a shame Andy doesn’t have that on film,” added James, chuckling. “We could do with the evidence.”

“Well, chaps, we’re at the lego hotel,” said Richard, sliding down a spider leg and onto the patio, stretching himself after the long ride. “How do we let Andy know we’ve arrived?”

“Surely he’s left some sort of surveillance?” said James.

“Raise the flag?” suggested Jeremy. “Queen James is home.”

“Pillock,” laughed James, hitting him on the arm and rolling his eyes.

“Ahhh...” sighed Richard from inside the hotel. “Forget that, Andy’s left us food! There’s a baked bean!”

………………………………

By the time the three of them were sat down on the too large furniture in the hotel, legs swinging and arms barely reaching the table – especially Richard – Andy had detected their arrival and appeared beside the hotel, lifting it and walking away.

“You made it,” their friend grinned in at them through the window, his nostrils filling their entire view and his voice booming.

“Of course,” replied Jeremy, only then realising that there was no way Andy could hear them.

“I’m just taking you to the car,” said Andy. “We’ve got to catch the Stig.”

Minutes later, the hotel was carefully placed in the boot of Andy’s 4x4 and the lid closed, dropping the hotel into semi-darkness.

“That was loud,” commented Richard, sliding off the massive lego chair and wandering towards the hotel’s entrance, his giant lego mug of coffee still in his hand.

“Yes,” said James. “The sound waves are…”

“I’m bored, James,” interrupted Jeremy. “Why do you think Andy’s got to drive us to Stig? Why didn’t he just zap us straight away?”

“Stig took the machine,” suggested Richard. “It was probably his, actually, given that we ended up in Stigland at one point.”

“Oh yeah,” nodded Jeremy. “How could I forget? So we’ve got to catch up with Stig?”

“We should get comfortable then,” suggested James. “Take advantage of this hotel’s facilities.”

Richard stared at him.

“The beds,” said James. “More comfortable than last night’s single toy brick?”

“Oh yeah,” grinned Richard. “Though, actually, I slept quite well.”

“At our expense,” suggested Jeremy. “I seem to remember you deciding I was your personal pillow.”

“Right then,” coughed Richard. “Off upstairs til we stop, gentlemen?”

……………………………………………

Abbie forced herself to continue to stare determinedly at Stig, desperately trying not to fall asleep, despite hours of waiting. She didn’t think Stig would take off and leave the boys in trouble, but at the same time he hadn’t been keen on stopping, it was hard to say. She definitely didn’t want to give him opportunity to steal his keys back.

As her eyes performed a long, slow blink for the third time in ten minutes, Andy walked through the door carrying a pile of lego.

“Abbie, Stig,” he greeted, carefully setting the lego, in the shape of a building, on one of the nearby tables and nodding to them. “They’re in there, how shall we do this?”

Stig stood, holding a hand out to Abbie for his keys.

With a sigh of relief that she’d passed on the baton, Abbie handed over the keys, then turned to Andy.

“I hope they’re OK,” she said. “I’m going to grab forty winks before I fall down.”

Andy patted her shoulder. “Thanks Abbie, you did an amazing job. Above and beyond.” He patted her on the shoulder as she departed, then turned to pick up the lego again.

“Lead on, Stig.”

Stig marched out of the service station, making no compensation for Andy following behind him with the sizeable hotel, or simply for Andy’s lesser height. He quickly zig zagged through the parked cars, before reaching his Audi. He pointed to the ground behind it, waiting for Andy to place the lego hotel down, then reached into the boot, withdrawing the shrink ray.

“You’re going to grow the hotel too?” asked Andy.

Stig nodded.

“Won’t it take up quite a lot of the car park?”

Stig folded his arms, tapping one of his fingers against his arm.

“Fine, we’ll worry about that later,” agreed Andy, taking several steps away from the hotel.

The Stig took aim, and fired.


	5. Chapter 5

Jeremy was thoroughly comfortable. The lego hotel – including the beds – was every bit as good as he remembered it being, but now, since they were shrunk beyond the scale it was built to, he could even lie on the bed without his feet hanging off the end. It was fantastic!

The rocking motion of the car, combined with his tiredness and the muffled snores of James and Richard, worked to lull him to sleep quickly, only waking slightly when the motion of the car stopped and Andy removed the hotel from the boot of the car. Then, a few minutes later, he found himself disturbed again by a noise at his door.

“Hamster?” he whispered. “James?” He wondered if something was going on. Opening one eye fully, he jumped in surprise when his eye focussed on an angry Stig, silhouetted in the door, his arms folded and his foot tapping impatiently.

“Stig?”

Jeremy pinched himself, wondering if he was dreaming.

Stig walked over to the bed, removing the blankets in an easy to interpret gesture.

“I don’t think he’s pleased, Jez,” put in Andy, unnecessarily, appearing at the doorway behind Stig. “You want to get the others?”

“Sure,” groaned Jeremy, stretching, then looking down at his clothing, grateful when he realised that he’d climbed into bed fully dressed. Even his shoes were still on his feet, mostly because he wasn’t keen to tread on any lego knobbles, he knew how painful they were.

He rose from the bed, walking towards the door slightly unsteadily, then turning left as he squeezed past Andy, opening the next door along.

“Hamster,” he said, heading inside and bending down to shake his small friend. He turned back to Andy, hovering at the door. “Why don’t you grab James in the next one?”

…………………………………………………

The night and the cold felt like a shock after the warmth of the hotel’s blankets, Richard shivered as he followed Jeremy out into the chilly cool of the late evening/early morning, greeted by that early morning smell that still managed to remind him of long car journeys as a child, usually accompanied by some vomit in the back of the car at some point, though not necessarily his.

“OK, Hamster?” asked Jeremy, standing alongside him with his hands in his pockets, staring at Stig, James and Andy as they stood alongside the giant lego hotel.

Richard yawned. “I hate getting up in the night,” he grumbled.

“Can you shrink it again, Stig?” asked Andy. “Before it attracts attention.”

Stig rapidly shot the building with the ray gun, shrinking it down again without difficulty and waiting for Andy to bend down and pick it up before squaring off to Jeremy, James and Richard, his hands firmly on his hips as he did so.

“What?” protested Jeremy.

Stig raised a single finger at him, deliberately shook it, first at Jeremy, then at Richard and finally James. Then he walked past them, and climbed into his car, putting the car into reverse gear and revving the engine in a non-too-subtle hint to get them moving out of his way.

“I guess he wasn’t terribly pleased about the delay,” observed James, ambling over to Andy’s car and climbing into the passenger seat before anyone could object.

“You’re definitely going to owe Abbie, Stig and the whole crew a pint,” Andy informed them.

“That’s good,” mumbled Richard, falling into the back seat and barely getting his seatbelt on before he was back asleep again.

“He had a rough day yesterday,” explained Jeremy to Andy, squeezing into the back seat behind James. 

“I’m afraid to ask,” laughed Andy, starting the car.

……………………………………………………………

“I am never coming to a party at yours again, Wilman,” announced Jeremy loudly, winking at the remaining crew and patting his old friend on the shoulder. “Way too hazardous.”

“It’s you,” replied Andy, without missing a beat. “Nothing to do with me.”

“Oddly,” said James. “That’s exactly what I said. Though I included this one too.” He nodded pointedly at Richard, who was standing between them, still dead on his feet.

“Yeah,” agreed Andy, laughing. “I can believe that. I’m starting to think you should get paid more for keeping these two alive and out of trouble.”

“I’m not taking that money,” grinned James. “Too much stress. Especially the ‘out of trouble’ part.”

Still chuckling, Andy headed away to see to the stragglers from the crew off, their mission finally complete, patting James on the shoulder as he left. “I think the stress is yours anyway, James,” he added quietly.

Nodding resignedly, James took hold of Richard’s arm, manoeuvring him into the back of his Panda. “I don’t think you’re in any state to drive home,” he explained, closing the door behind the unusually cooperative hamster and heading back for the big oaf. “You too, Jezza,” he said softly, nudging Jeremy.

“I’m OK, Slow,” protested Jeremy.

“Yeah, I could do with a hand though,” suggested James, nodding at the once-more-sleeping Richard slumped over in the back seat of the car, but really meaning nothing of the sort. He’d seen Jeremy in the aftermath of this sort of adventure. Richard might need lots of sleep to catch up with the physical trauma, but it was always Jeremy who took on the mental load – the responsibility for what had happened or almost happened – and it always caught up with him just at the point where if James didn’t intervene he’d be alone. It wasn’t right.

“With that little thing?” protested Jeremy, half-heartedly.

“It’s not the size that makes a difference,” observed James, “it’s keeping the whole thing in one piece that’s hard work.”

Grinning, Jeremy climbed into the Panda.


End file.
